Happy! – Season 1, Episode 8: “I Am the Future”

* For a recap & review of the penultimate Season 1 episode, “Destroyer of Worlds” – click here
* Season 2 next year; Happy!‘s been renewed!We see some audition tapes. Louis Sheinberg (Christopher Fitzgerald) auditions, against the will of the people behind the camera. He’s soon escorted out screaming: “I am the future!”
Skip ahead to the future. Sonny Shine hears that the kids are all gone. Then there’s Mr. Blue (Ritchie Coster), getting roughed up by Detective Meredith McCarthy (Lili Mirojnick). The detective is definitely not fucking around, either. Not after mom ended her life. Merry’s got nothing to lose.
Happy (Patton Oswalt) laments the fact they still haven’t found Hailey (Bryce Lorenzo). He worries he’s fading away, too. That’s when he has a “holy shit” moment, remembering a clue. At the same time, Nick Sax (Chris Meloni) is ready to kill Blue, he wants to find his daughter again; no more games. However, Happy says they’ve got a way to find more information.
This begins a Reservoir Dogs Mr. Blonde homage, as Happy straps down the green sock imaginary friend he met at the meeting recently. Some torture ahead, unless the sock gives up what he knows. A whole other side to the imaginary blue unicorn. He forces the sock to tell him about the Very Bad Santa (Joseph D. Reitman), his old pal. A tragic, nasty tale. Afterwards, Happy rallies the other imaginary friends through the power of belief. Yay!What about Amanda (Medina Senghore)? She’s in a lot of trouble, stuck at the mercy of the completely insane Mr. Shine. He says she’ll “be erased.” That language makes me nervous. Best part, though, is that she has no time for his bullshit. Despite the scary predicament in which she’s trapped.
The meth head Santa is doing Hailey’s hair. Weirdly, he’s treating her nicely, or trying to, anyway. That sort of upsets me more. Despite all the guy’s madness he is clearly one highly damaged individual. I hope the hitman and his furry blue friend can get to the girl soon. Santa’s deteriorating mentally, fast.
Meredith goes to see Sonny Shine. The entertainer doesn’t care much, passing it all off like he’s not worried whatsoever. Of course Meredith’s no slouch. She won’t stop now, not until he’s ruined. Could get dangerous, seeing as how he’s a violent psychotic.
Nick and Happy have tracked down a door to a supposed underground lair. Once inside they come across terrifying things. Down there, Santa’s got all kinds of lobotomised people shambling around like zombies, making them “little forever” by drilling holes through their skulls and into the brain. Lucky for Hailey she gets out of the creep’s grip, though her dad isn’t so lucky: Nick falls into a couple bear traps. The little blue dude has to try and do his part, however he can.
This pits an aggressive Happy against the methed out Santa. The two of them fight while Hailey makes another run for it. Eventually, Santa jams the little unicorn in a jar full of water; oh, no! He chases after Hailey while she rides an elevator upstairs. Just at the moment Nick gets himself out of the bear traps and Happy frees himself of the jar.

“I just keep discovering bold new frontiers of suck”

On the roof, Hailey yells to the police far below. Santa finds her, though tries to tell her he never wanted to be scary. Except now it’s too late for that. He figures he can stop her from growing up, that they can “fly away together.” Yeah, right. She’s smarter than that. She nearly slips, then when she looks back Santa’s gone. Hailey then comes face to face with her father. What a first time meeting. It’s interrupted when Santa attacks Nick and they rumble. When the meth head Santa says “only magic” can hurt him, when Nick seems defeated, the imaginary friends arrive. Happy orders them all to attack. It’s a vicious fight. Some of the imaginaries die.
Yet soon enough, Nick puts a bullet right through Santa’s eyes, and the whole hideous ordeal is over. Amanda is reunited with her daughter once more. After years of being awful, Nick proved he’s capable of caring, at least. No matter what happens between him and Amanda and Hailey from here.
Only Nick might be dying. He takes a spill on the concrete, saying goodbye to Happy. Is this checkout time for Mr. Sax?

“Hocus pocus, motherfucker.”

Nah. Nick ain’t dying yet. Adds to his whole persona, the mystique of Nick Sax. That’s his “kind of dirty.” He and Meredith kind of patch things up, too. He feels gratitude for what she did, helping to get Hailey back. He’s forever grateful.
Then Happy tells Hailey he has to go, that he’s no longer needed. Just how it is for an imaginary friend. He sings his theme song before disappearing into thin air. How is it that this show can be supremely fucked up one minute then totally endearing and sweet the next?
We see that Happy hasn’t exactly disappeared, though. Because someone else needs him: Nick. An imaginary friend can’t abandon someone who needs them. And lord, this man could take decades to fix. Especially in terms of him trying to be a family-type guy or a father. Oh, the adventures these two will have!
Can’t forget the mid-credits scene, either. Blue is in prison, where he gets a visit from his reanimated nephew Mikey (Gus Halper). Undead Mikey’s there to breathe a fucking demon into his uncle. Now, that is going to be some wild shit, and a whole lot of trouble.Season 2: bring it. This was amazing, got better as the season wore on. Loved it all around. Cannot wait for us to see more, lots of places to go from here!

An Update from Father Gore

Seek & Ye Shall Find

Father Gore is first and foremost a passionate lover of film— especially horror. He's also a Master's student at Memorial University of Newfoundland with a concentration in postmodern critical theory, currently writing a thesis which will be his debut novel of literary fiction, titled Silence. He also used to write for Film Inquiry frequently during 2016-17 and is currently contributing to Scriptophobic in a column called Serial Killer Celluloid focusing on film adaptations about real life murderers. As of September 2018, Father Gore is an official member of the Online Film Critics Society.